I was having dinner the other night with a former professor, who is still a mentor of mine, and we were talking about how both of us still have friends from elementary school that we see on a regular basis. I asked him why he thought these early friendships had endured for so long, and he said, “Well, you were all in the fish hatchery together.”
When I looked up the definition of a fish hatchery—a protected environment where you have a chance to thrive and grow—I thought it was the perfect metaphor. There’s something about that shared experience early in life, when you’re evolving, that creates a special kind of relationship, different from those formed later in life.
If you have childhood friendships that have lasted to this day, the fish hatchery metaphor might resonate with you as much as it did with me.